But it also could be a perfect nickname for Upper Perkiomen’s 400 freestyle relay team.

“It’s definitely a lot of fun,” said the “baby” of the group, freshman Hunter Peck. “It’s a really big honor to swim with these seniors.”

Just then, high in the bleachers of La Salle’s Kirk Pool, a search party went out for one of the three “men” in the group: senior Mason Cassel.

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“Whose turn was it to babysit Mason?” Peck asked.

“Not mine, I thought you had him,” said senior Jason Mercando.

Cassel was eventually found, and senior Kyle Himmelwright completed the quartet as they gathered together to talk about what they had just accomplished: Completing a clean relay sweep in the District 1 Class AA Championships.

“I felt amazing, and the taper we’re doing in practice really worked,” said Mercando, who led off the relay. “The first 50 was practically effortless. So then I just brought it home and didn’t care if my muscles hurt or anything. I was leaving it all in the pool.”

Mercando’s temamates followed suit to finish in 3:16.62, nearly three seconds better than second-place Springfield-Montco. The victory helped cap a second-straight Class AA team title for the Tribe, which finished with 388 points, 19 more than Springfield-Montco. It was the third relay win of the meet for Upper Perkiomen, which won the 200 medley relay (Cassel, Peck, Brandon Umstead, Quinn Perlstein) and 200 free relay (Himmelwright, Perlstein, Umstead, Bryon Scholl) on Thursday.

Cassel swam the anchor leg on Friday, and was gifted a pretty sizable lead before he even left the blocks.

“It was a moment of relief for me, in all honesty, because I’ve had moments where it comes down to me and the other guy touching, and it’s scary stuff,” said Cassel, who also won the 100 free (48.52) on Friday. “Today I’m glad it turned out that way, because I was going to go as hard as I could no matter what.”

While the Tribe will send a small army to Bucknell for the state meet in a few weeks, a handful of other Pioneer Athletic Conference swimmers will head there, as well.

Perkiomen Valley freshman Wyatt Amdor secured his second state bid of the meet, finishing in the fifth and final automatic qualifying spot in the Class AAA 100 breaststroke. Amdor’s time of 58.95 was just enough to finish in the top 5, this time without the drama of Thursday, when he jumped from sixth to fifth in the 200 IM after a disqualification.

“This event is stacked in this district, so it’s hard to not want to win, but I was just trying to get at least fifth, and I barely got that, so now I have to get ready for states,” Amdor said. “I took it out a little too slow but I knew I just had to make it to states. If I made it there I can do so much better than I did today.”

Other than Cassel, Amdor and the Upper Perk relay, no other PAC-10 swimmers earned automatic qualificiation to states on Friday. But that doesn’t mean their dreams are dead just yet.

Mercando finished third in the AA 500 free (5:04.92). Only the winner earns an automatic berth in Class AA, but his time may be enough to grab one of 16 wild card bids. Last year’s at-large cutoff in the 500 was four seconds slower.

PAC-10 swimmers finished second, third and fourth in the AA 100 back, with Pottsgrove’s Morgan Schreiber (54.57), Upper Perk’s Himmelwright (54.97) and the Tribe’s Umstead (55.73) touching the wall behind Devon Prep’s Michael Knaus (53.79). Last year’s at-large cutoff in the 100 back was 57.22, meaning the PAC-10 threesome could head to Bucknell, as well.

“I wanted to go 54 and that’s exactly what I did,” said Schreiber, who is also hoping for a wild card in the 200 individual medley after a second-place finish on Thursday. “You can’t count on the kid who drops four seconds (Knaus), but give him credit for doing that. I thought I swam well.”

In the 100 breaststroke, Upper Perk’s Perlstein will keep an eye on times to see if his second-place finish (1:02.28) snags him a spot in states.

Over in Class AAA, Boyertown’s Chase Renninger will hope his sixth-place finish in the 100 backstroke (52.77) is good enough for a state bid. Joining him will be the Owen J. Roberts 400 free relay team of Sam Feiser, Alex McCullough, Basil Mokhallalati and Matt Terrell, who should feel optimistic after a sixth-place finish (3:11.87).

That finish came in a lightning-fast relay that saw first-place Upper Dublin (3:03.89) and second-place Council Rock North (3:07.19) both break the existing district record, which had been held by the Boyertown 2010 foursome of Jordan Hartman, William Corbett, Matt Duffy and Wesley Trumbauer (3:07.58).

Back in the top row of the bleachers – behind the small but vocal Upper Perk fan contingent – the Bucknell-bound Indians were making fun of each other, as seems to be their custom.

But in the middle of it all, one of the elder statesmen took a moment to soak it in.

“We came into this meet confident we were going to win, and I feel like we can drop a decent amount of time off at states,” said Himmelwright. “It’s definitely getting emotional now that I’m almost done. I have one more meet in my career.”

NOTES

Other solid swims on Friday included Boyertown’s Miller, who finished 12th in the AAA 500 (4:46.93), and Pottstown’s Anthony Gazzillo, who represented the Trojans well as their only swimmer at the meet, finishing third in the 100 free (50.81). … Upper Dublin defended its AAA team title with a dominant 278-point showing. North Penn was second (175), while Boyertown was the top local finisher in eighth (81).